I cannot fathom how more and more men are latching onto this shit even as statistically, they are more lonely than ever before.
Because toxic masculinity communities are one of the few online spaces which don’t stigmatize you for being a white male and daring to have problems in your life despite your “privilege”.
If people stopped talking down on young males and actually listened to their problems, all these toxic masculinity gurus wouldn’t get the tiniest fraction of the following they have. But as long as we keep pushing onto them all the sins of everyone who ever lived with their same gender, they’ll end up falling in those communities which turns them into Andrew Tate replicas.
The problem with this is, and it drives me crazy, I keep hearing “if we talked to them-”
I’m a woman! They won’t talk to me! Or, if they do, it’s to tell me why I’m wrong, because I’m a woman! This isn’t something I can deprogram away!
And trust me, I’ve deprogrammed right-wing shitheads before, who weren’t also misogynists. I can’t do shit for the ones who aren’t willing to talk to me. And the worst part? I have gotten lots of seemingly hopeless people into committed, loving, long-term relationships through the power of just listen to me, I can help you, but nooooo! I have breasts! I’m almost 40! I have a happy, long-term relationship, and I’m a woman, so what can I possibly know!
I’m sick to death of ‘we just need to-’ No we don’t, because we can’t. Men need to. Men need to break through this toxic bullshit because we, and by this I mean, women, literally can’t. And trying- and trust me on this because I’ve tried- trying only gets abuse.
I really can’t underscore this enough. The wall I come up against is, what do you know, you’re a woman. “We” can’t talk our way out of this one. The problem of toxic masculinity intentionally boxes women out, making it nigh impossible for women to help.
I know. The main thing they need is a non-misogynist male role model, which is becoming increasingly hard to find because apparently social media algorithms encourage the type of content that pushes them in the opposite direction.
Realistically, imo, the main way women can help with this, besides talking to them very early on (VERY early on, as Tate-types are unfortunately gaining traction in school as well), is trying to combat the misandrist narrative that keeps on growing in feminist spaces. One example is the whole Bear debacle, which furthered the divide between genders even more. If people (in general, I’m sure many men shared it as well) keep making stuff like that go viral, it makes it harder and harder for young males to develop any sort of empathy for the opposite sex.
I find it very difficult to empathize with the ‘bear thing,’ because, as my fiance (who is a man) put it, ‘I don’t know why anyone would pick any other human over the bear. Bears tend to avoid you and do your own thing. Humans are unpredictable.’
From that perspective, it seemed like a lot of people just got mad because they identify with the word ‘man,’ here, and don’t want to think of themselves as capable of evil. Which would be naive, because everyone is capable of anything.
Bears don’t “tend to avoid” any more than people do. There’s dangerous people that would assault you, and there’s species of bears (i.e. Polar Bears) that would definitely attack you on sight.
But the whole thing is not about the technicality. The videos were very clearly framed with emphasis on the gender of the human, they got extremely viral and millions of young males saw women saying stuff like “at least the bear would kill me instantly”. How do you think they felt, as kids that probably never even had a relationship before? You think that “helped them understand the women’s point of view” like they said was the purpose of the video, or brought them in the opposite direction, making them feel like they’re some different species, impossible to relate with, planting a seed that will only grow through the indoctrination of all the online toxic masculinity gurus?
Enough with the “Men vs. Women”, especially online where young kids will see them without any context of why is that happening. Both sexes need to do their best to stop prejudices towards the other inside their groups, and only then we can have a serious and understanding conversation. Of course that’s hard to do between algorithms and bad actors, but there’s really nothing else we can do at this point, since the large majority of both camps is entrenched in their opinion and will only listen to people of their own gender.
I know broadly that the left has pretty much abandoned any talk making people’s personal lives better and instead has tripled down on the idea that “bad people are bad” for the sake of some lofty and impossible ideal of a star-trek world so liberals can broadly feel like they’re a part of some social good. Look at the votes here now, we have created a reactionary space exactly like the right.
Dare suggest that young men have ANY problems? STRAIGHT TO THE NAZI-RIGHT WITH YOU. Never mind that these are kids who have never felt an ounce of privilege in their lives, so telling them they’re entitled instead of talking to them and giving advice for getting girls and romance just pushes them away. But it just feels so good to hate a side though, right???
But that damage is done. We have a massive rightward swing in the US because we mismanaged fucking talking to each other. Like tripping and breaking your skull while laying in bed. We deserve this mess honestly.
We have created spaces where people with any differences are segregated and you will get roasted in places like this for reminding delusional lefties that even if we got our socialist revolution (which someone else will lead, aannnny day now), we would still have to live next to hundreds of millions of people who didn’t want it. That usually draws a lot of ire because it’s not optimistic enough and involves the uncomfortable truth that we share a world with people who aren’t going to always “get it” and we need to work, live and talk amongst them. Forever.
Where i’m baffled though is the basic math. Younger people are having less and less sex and relationships, people are broadly staying single and not dating or having any intimacy well into adulthood and often have NO plans to date or have a family even, so how is this eruption of sweaty used-car-salesmen making traction? There are no success stories, it’s entirely manufactured. It’s no different than the flat-earth movement but for pudgy white teenage boys.
We are a species that rather withdraw into our own narratives than face reality and it will be our great filter.
Where i’m baffled though is the basic math. Younger people are having less and less sex and relationships, people are broadly staying single and not dating or having any intimacy well into adulthood and often have NO plans to date or have a family even, so how is this eruption of sweaty used-car-salesmen making traction? There are no success stories, it’s entirely manufactured. It’s no different than the flat-earth movement but for pudgy white teenage boys.
The “success story” is Andrew Tate, and probably even people like Musk or Trump. They see how extremely misogynistic people manage to get with multiple women nonetheless and get fooled into thinking being “stoic” and generally a jerk is the key to getting laid. They don’t realize that those people are just rich and are getting laid despite their personality, not thanks to it.
Then there’s also the ones who are fully aware of this and are sold on the “grind mentality”, so that they can get rich like them (again, missing the point on how all of them either did it through crimes, were born rich, or both).
Of course if you look at it with some logic it all falls apart, but you can’t expect young people to have enough knowledge to do this. They need some positive role model to tell them right from wrong, but it’s becoming increasingly hard when the negative ones keep springing up like mushrooms.
We have a huge problem which is endemic and fundamental to progressive thought, which is that good, reasonable progressive thought which includes concepts like consent, like working towards better outcomes for more than yourself, empathy and respect and caring about community… those are developed over time in most people, they’re mature concepts that come with a lot of growth. They may be particularly alien to someone who grew up in less-than-favorable environments.
So we develop these better ways of thinking, then lecture younger, dumber kids with it expecting it to land on a 17 - 22 year old boy who grew up in electronic-distractionworld, who is just fucking horny and wants to date girls but can’t reconcile that with their crushing isolation and social insecurity. To them it sounds like “blah blah blah, you’re bad, masculinity is toxic, blah blah” and they reject it just to feel strong and cool. The Tates have leveraged this and built a 2-dimensional cartoon icon around this and have ridden this grift all the way to the bank. By the time the kids realize it’s not working for them, they’ve already also swallowed every right-wing, anti-intellectual pill along with it and are just bags of hopeless hate and profound sexual insecurity.
And our so-called adults are also too fucking distracted and isolated to remotely feel like the “adults in the room” anymore.
I feel like I’m getting close to being an “old man yelling at phones” meme, but I have watched this culture of short-attention-span pandering absolutely ruin intelligence and culture in our modern world and it’s infuriating.
Yup, all of this is true and it’s sad how people with influence fail to understand this.
You talked about 17-22 yo, which definitely feel negatively about people lecturing them on what they feel is an irresistible primal instinct, but another big issue is that, in the digital era, even younger kids are exposed to that. Older teenagers may feel like something they did is seen as terribly wrong and be angry at that, but there’s younger ones that probably can only think “…what did I even do? Why is everyone angry at me just because I’m a boy?”.
And guess who comes in to give them “answers” when they’re in that confused and vulnerable state? Yup, Tate & friends. Really, they’ve figured everything about how to make as many people as possible fall in their rabbithole to profit from them, and we’re doing nothing to stop them. Even Tate was arrested only because he did some heinous shit to people “working” with him AND boasted about that, otherwise he’d still be around. We need some serious regulations on social media algorithms, but I doubt we’re ever gonna see those in our lifetimes considering who’s in power.
We need some serious regulations on social media algorithms, and I doubt we’re ever gonna see those considering who’s in power.
I remember when we looked at China’s authoritarian social controls like “holy shit that’s bad” and now I’m sighing pretty hard. I’m sure there was a better line we could have walked, but it’s too late for any of that. We are gonna have to crash and burn as a whole culture before we see the pendulum swing back in the other direction. Just poopin back and forth. Forever.
Because toxic masculinity communities are one of the few online spaces which don’t stigmatize you for being a white male and daring to have problems in your life despite your “privilege”.
If people stopped talking down on young males and actually listened to their problems, all these toxic masculinity gurus wouldn’t get the tiniest fraction of the following they have. But as long as we keep pushing onto them all the sins of everyone who ever lived with their same gender, they’ll end up falling in those communities which turns them into Andrew Tate replicas.
The problem with this is, and it drives me crazy, I keep hearing “if we talked to them-”
I’m a woman! They won’t talk to me! Or, if they do, it’s to tell me why I’m wrong, because I’m a woman! This isn’t something I can deprogram away!
And trust me, I’ve deprogrammed right-wing shitheads before, who weren’t also misogynists. I can’t do shit for the ones who aren’t willing to talk to me. And the worst part? I have gotten lots of seemingly hopeless people into committed, loving, long-term relationships through the power of just listen to me, I can help you, but nooooo! I have breasts! I’m almost 40! I have a happy, long-term relationship, and I’m a woman, so what can I possibly know!
I’m sick to death of ‘we just need to-’ No we don’t, because we can’t. Men need to. Men need to break through this toxic bullshit because we, and by this I mean, women, literally can’t. And trying- and trust me on this because I’ve tried- trying only gets abuse.
I really can’t underscore this enough. The wall I come up against is, what do you know, you’re a woman. “We” can’t talk our way out of this one. The problem of toxic masculinity intentionally boxes women out, making it nigh impossible for women to help.
I know. The main thing they need is a non-misogynist male role model, which is becoming increasingly hard to find because apparently social media algorithms encourage the type of content that pushes them in the opposite direction.
Realistically, imo, the main way women can help with this, besides talking to them very early on (VERY early on, as Tate-types are unfortunately gaining traction in school as well), is trying to combat the misandrist narrative that keeps on growing in feminist spaces. One example is the whole Bear debacle, which furthered the divide between genders even more. If people (in general, I’m sure many men shared it as well) keep making stuff like that go viral, it makes it harder and harder for young males to develop any sort of empathy for the opposite sex.
I find it very difficult to empathize with the ‘bear thing,’ because, as my fiance (who is a man) put it, ‘I don’t know why anyone would pick any other human over the bear. Bears tend to avoid you and do your own thing. Humans are unpredictable.’
From that perspective, it seemed like a lot of people just got mad because they identify with the word ‘man,’ here, and don’t want to think of themselves as capable of evil. Which would be naive, because everyone is capable of anything.
Bears don’t “tend to avoid” any more than people do. There’s dangerous people that would assault you, and there’s species of bears (i.e. Polar Bears) that would definitely attack you on sight.
But the whole thing is not about the technicality. The videos were very clearly framed with emphasis on the gender of the human, they got extremely viral and millions of young males saw women saying stuff like “at least the bear would kill me instantly”. How do you think they felt, as kids that probably never even had a relationship before? You think that “helped them understand the women’s point of view” like they said was the purpose of the video, or brought them in the opposite direction, making them feel like they’re some different species, impossible to relate with, planting a seed that will only grow through the indoctrination of all the online toxic masculinity gurus?
Enough with the “Men vs. Women”, especially online where young kids will see them without any context of why is that happening. Both sexes need to do their best to stop prejudices towards the other inside their groups, and only then we can have a serious and understanding conversation. Of course that’s hard to do between algorithms and bad actors, but there’s really nothing else we can do at this point, since the large majority of both camps is entrenched in their opinion and will only listen to people of their own gender.
I know broadly that the left has pretty much abandoned any talk making people’s personal lives better and instead has tripled down on the idea that “bad people are bad” for the sake of some lofty and impossible ideal of a star-trek world so liberals can broadly feel like they’re a part of some social good. Look at the votes here now, we have created a reactionary space exactly like the right.
Dare suggest that young men have ANY problems? STRAIGHT TO THE NAZI-RIGHT WITH YOU. Never mind that these are kids who have never felt an ounce of privilege in their lives, so telling them they’re entitled instead of talking to them and giving advice for getting girls and romance just pushes them away. But it just feels so good to hate a side though, right???
But that damage is done. We have a massive rightward swing in the US because we mismanaged fucking talking to each other. Like tripping and breaking your skull while laying in bed. We deserve this mess honestly.
We have created spaces where people with any differences are segregated and you will get roasted in places like this for reminding delusional lefties that even if we got our socialist revolution (which someone else will lead, aannnny day now), we would still have to live next to hundreds of millions of people who didn’t want it. That usually draws a lot of ire because it’s not optimistic enough and involves the uncomfortable truth that we share a world with people who aren’t going to always “get it” and we need to work, live and talk amongst them. Forever.
Where i’m baffled though is the basic math. Younger people are having less and less sex and relationships, people are broadly staying single and not dating or having any intimacy well into adulthood and often have NO plans to date or have a family even, so how is this eruption of sweaty used-car-salesmen making traction? There are no success stories, it’s entirely manufactured. It’s no different than the flat-earth movement but for pudgy white teenage boys.
We are a species that rather withdraw into our own narratives than face reality and it will be our great filter.
The “success story” is Andrew Tate, and probably even people like Musk or Trump. They see how extremely misogynistic people manage to get with multiple women nonetheless and get fooled into thinking being “stoic” and generally a jerk is the key to getting laid. They don’t realize that those people are just rich and are getting laid despite their personality, not thanks to it.
Then there’s also the ones who are fully aware of this and are sold on the “grind mentality”, so that they can get rich like them (again, missing the point on how all of them either did it through crimes, were born rich, or both).
Of course if you look at it with some logic it all falls apart, but you can’t expect young people to have enough knowledge to do this. They need some positive role model to tell them right from wrong, but it’s becoming increasingly hard when the negative ones keep springing up like mushrooms.
We have a huge problem which is endemic and fundamental to progressive thought, which is that good, reasonable progressive thought which includes concepts like consent, like working towards better outcomes for more than yourself, empathy and respect and caring about community… those are developed over time in most people, they’re mature concepts that come with a lot of growth. They may be particularly alien to someone who grew up in less-than-favorable environments.
So we develop these better ways of thinking, then lecture younger, dumber kids with it expecting it to land on a 17 - 22 year old boy who grew up in electronic-distractionworld, who is just fucking horny and wants to date girls but can’t reconcile that with their crushing isolation and social insecurity. To them it sounds like “blah blah blah, you’re bad, masculinity is toxic, blah blah” and they reject it just to feel strong and cool. The Tates have leveraged this and built a 2-dimensional cartoon icon around this and have ridden this grift all the way to the bank. By the time the kids realize it’s not working for them, they’ve already also swallowed every right-wing, anti-intellectual pill along with it and are just bags of hopeless hate and profound sexual insecurity.
And our so-called adults are also too fucking distracted and isolated to remotely feel like the “adults in the room” anymore.
I feel like I’m getting close to being an “old man yelling at phones” meme, but I have watched this culture of short-attention-span pandering absolutely ruin intelligence and culture in our modern world and it’s infuriating.
Yup, all of this is true and it’s sad how people with influence fail to understand this.
You talked about 17-22 yo, which definitely feel negatively about people lecturing them on what they feel is an irresistible primal instinct, but another big issue is that, in the digital era, even younger kids are exposed to that. Older teenagers may feel like something they did is seen as terribly wrong and be angry at that, but there’s younger ones that probably can only think “…what did I even do? Why is everyone angry at me just because I’m a boy?”.
And guess who comes in to give them “answers” when they’re in that confused and vulnerable state? Yup, Tate & friends. Really, they’ve figured everything about how to make as many people as possible fall in their rabbithole to profit from them, and we’re doing nothing to stop them. Even Tate was arrested only because he did some heinous shit to people “working” with him AND boasted about that, otherwise he’d still be around. We need some serious regulations on social media algorithms, but I doubt we’re ever gonna see those in our lifetimes considering who’s in power.
I remember when we looked at China’s authoritarian social controls like “holy shit that’s bad” and now I’m sighing pretty hard. I’m sure there was a better line we could have walked, but it’s too late for any of that. We are gonna have to crash and burn as a whole culture before we see the pendulum swing back in the other direction. Just poopin back and forth. Forever.